The Masks of Nyarlathotep: London part 1

Extracts from the Personal Diary of Dr Elisa Jamieson MD

In the next fifteen months my life returns to normal excluding of course the six weeks training we are required to undergo at MI13 which in my case involve me extending my mystical abilities to whit I obtain the ability to cast both the Heal spell which helps recovery but also the Healing spell which is much more powerful version. The spells take two weeks to learn and my other four weeks involve an intensive driving program all fairly regular really except for the fact that I ensured that my six weeks concurred with Alex Douglas’ just in hope that I would see him.

On the other hand in my real profession I have thirteen weeks to advance towards my goal of becoming a heart surgeon. People keep insisting on telling me that my dreams are all pie in the sky and that I should set my sights slightly lower as only males can achieve the top jobs. But I make it clear that this is the twenty-first century and bigotry like this should no longer exist, plus I am determined to succeed for after all I am a Jamieson. I am quiet sure that my father would disown me were I to give up on my goals just because someone had just put a few hurdles in my path after trying so hard and for so long. Of course the Royal Berkshire does not have the best reputation so I may need to move again. So with this in mind I must continue to look for jobs and send out my resume.

As usual I work through Christmas and take New Year off so I can be with the family in Scotland. A few other things also occur during this time. For one, there is finally the trip to the Palace in January for my father’s official knighthood ceremony. It should have been the previous year but father had required an operation so they kindly delayed it to this year.

In February James comes home on leave. I felt that I was only playing him along as the relationship was beginning to stagnate and, while I do like James, I think I should make it a point that there is no question about that I have found that I did not love him. With this in mind, when he got home I visited him at Aldershot to inform him of my decision, stating that even though I no longer wished to continue our relationship at it present level I fervently hoped we could remain good friends.

Then, of course, in May, is Suzanne’s wedding where I am to be the maid of honour. However, do I really want to turn up by myself at a wedding because that would have been sad? After all, James was off training somewhere and, to be honest, we had split up. I could only hope that once again Alex Douglas could step in and bless him he was only too willing. In the end we had a great time and I am beginning to like Alex more and more.

As we entered June my brother, Craig, phoned me to spread the good news that Susan was pregnant with their second child and that she had now resigned her commission to become a full time mother. On the whole I have now got back to my regular schedule, with my early morning runs and cooking classes. I still have not found a new flatmate. However. but I have sold my motorcycle and helmet as I have now become convinced that cars are much safer, especially considering the amount of bikers I have seen in Accident and Emergency over the last few years.

Wednesday July 23^rd 2008:

My life is once again through into turmoil as I receive the dreaded call from Marmaduke Forbush that I am to report to duty for MI13 and that I am to check in with the rest of the team at St Pancreas Station, where a regrettable incident has been discovered. As I have no choice I agree to be there as soon as possible.

Upon arrival at St Pancreas I find Alex and Adam already in situ. Adam, it appears, having recovered after his sojourn to his retreat. Somewhat surprisingly I also notice Belinda is present and looking far more rosy than she did upon our last encounter. It seems the trip to the Wilmarth facility has done her a world of good. I do note however that there appears no sign of either Barbara or St John, but Alex informs me that they have been contacted and that they should be joining us in the next day or so.

With the introductions over its straight to work for it appears that a badly mutilated body of a middle aged Caucasian male has been discovered in a locked toilet upon the ten o’clock Eurostar train from Paris. A cleaner discovered the body and reported it to the Transport Police who then contacted the Met. Unfortunately that probably means we have had a two dozen policemen and train guards clumping their big size twelve’s through the evidence. SOCO have obviously also been through but they are not usually looking for the same sort of things that we are in this sort of situation. The body has been removed of course to the local hospital and it will be my job to do the autopsy. Alex reports that the police do have one snippet of information for us however and that is the name of the poor unfortunate. He was a Mr Elton Jackson and it appears that he was an author.

I take a quick look about the train before leaving to commit the autopsy and am surprised to note that while there are considerable amounts of blood on the carpet there seems to be surprisingly little an the walls and ceiling areas; maybe the autopsy will clear this up? The carriage where the body was found has been retained at St Pancreas until we finish our investigation the rest of the train however has departed.

Leaving St Pancreas I make my way to the hospital and begin my autopsy on the forty one year old male victim the male is Caucasian and is five feet eleven inches tall and weighs eleven stone six pounds, yet judging from excess epidermal tissue the victim appears to have lost approximately twenty-eight pounds in weight quite recently.

At first glance and with the untrained eye it appears that the victim has been disembowelled in a frenzied attack as severe damage has been inflicted upon both the large and small intestine yet all organs correspond to the correct size and weights for a male of the age and fitness level of the victim. However the blood splatter appeared to be far less than expected for such major injuries so what I needed to do was discover what it was that they were trying to hide.

With the mess it takes a few minutes but I finally discover the cause of death. It appears that the superior vena cava had been neatly severed with a very sharp blade causing the blood to pool in the lower abdominal cavity. This had been quite expertly done as they had inflicted no damage to the aorta during this operation, which I find quite impressive considering the fact that the victim was probably both alive and conscious at the time. Plus it appears to have been done while on a moving train and this indicates to me that at least on of the assailants had undergone extensive medical training of one kind or another.

The face had also been mutilated; a half-inch incision had been made horizontally across the temple and ventral incisions connecting to each which ran down the temple and nose causing a narrow strip of skin to flap loose over his lower face. No other injuries appear to have been inflicted upon the head and clearly all the musculature was still in place. I cannot see a reason for the mutilation but maybe it contains some kind of occult significance. I must remember to ask our occult expert (St John) about this when he reports in but for the moment I will place it on the back burner.

Later I notice as I search though the victim’s clothing and personal items that his clothing appears to be well worn and whoever it was that had inflicted his injuries appeared to take great pleasure in shredding all his clothes. I note the only part not slashed was his shoes but it does appear to me that they have been cleaned recently.

I file all this into the reports and take samples of blood and other bodily fluids and send them off for the full range of tests. I also take photographs of all the wounds. Finally I take samples of the dirt from the shoes and scrapings from under the fingernails, which I also bag up and send to the laboratory for analysis. As far as I can judge, the wounds on the victim appear to have inflicted with a blade approximately ten inches in length with a slight convex curve towards the tip. If I were to hazard a guess as to the type of weapon I would have to say it appears to have been inflicted by some kind of Special Forces knife. I then report back to the team to inform them of my findings.

While I had been away doing the autopsy my compatriots had done a little more research on what Mr Jackson had written and in doing so had produced a list starting with his first book back in ‘93. This was called ‘Skulls along the River’; a book and also his doctoral thesis, examining the behaviour of the head-hunter tribes operating within the Amazon basin. The title was thought up by his publisher, Prospero Press of London, to instil possible interest from other sources but this was not its target audience. In the end the book came out in only a very limited run and was well received by its true target audience, which was academia.

This was followed in ‘95 by ‘Masters of the Black Arts’, another academic tome, this time surveying supposedly sorcerous cults throughout history. This was like his first book in that it was once again a very short run and was well received by his target audience. In targeting this, his success was almost guaranteed and I think it should be noted here that all the details involved were clearly painstakingly researched.

In ‘96 he returned with the ‘Way of Terror’, which was again very well received by the academics. It analysed the systematic use of terror within cult organisations.

Then in ‘98 came the turning point with ‘Smoking Hearts’, which was a very unusual book in that it appears to be one book written in two clear halves. The first half was very much akin to his previous works and involved exploring historical Mayan death cults while the second half examined their modern day descendants. It should be noted here that this book was given a much more expansive print run than his previous books and in it he took a risk as he appeared to target a more populist audience instead of academics. Maybe this was due to pressure from his publishers. Anyway for him this gamble appeared to pay off as for once the book sold very successfully to not only the academics but also to the public as a whole.

His next book in 2001, ‘Sons of Death’, continued this new trait and told Jackson’s own experiences of infiltrating the Thuggee cults of Northern India. This did not endear him with either the Indian government or the anthropological academic community but it proved very popular with the general public. The Indian government even went as far as to accuse Jackson of fabricating evidence, stating that the Thuggees were a myth created to scare children and bore no basis in fact but this seemed to have little effect on sales.

After a two-year gap, in 2003 there came ‘Witch Cults of England’, summarising witch cults ancient and modern in nine counties of the United Kingdom including, I note, the Children of Light. This book was his most successful to date as it was greedily snatched up by the general public. However, as is always the way with a popular book, the critics had a field day and savaged it viciously. It was also widely condemned by many of the New Age groups who became incensed at their depiction within its pages and even by the National Trust.

Barbara even remembers meeting him during the research for this book as it was she who assisted much of his research by allowing him access to a number of historical National Trust monuments, including Stonehenge, and also serving as his liaison with a variety of the New Age groups covered in the book, including the Children of Light and the Druids. Everyone seemed very happy to co-operate with their moral outrage only kicking in once they had seen what he had written. Yet from my own experiences I have to admit that his views regarding certain individuals within the Children of Light were spot on and had we found this book when we were dealing with Rodriguez and his cronies then it may have spared everyone a fair amount of discomfort.

His final book came out in 2004 and was called ‘Black Power’. This expands upon one of his earlier works, ‘Way of Terror’, but like ‘Witch Cults’ it proved to be very controversial. Once again Jackson appeared to step on a few toes as, despite its immense popular appeal, a large swathe of the politically correct crowd, and most African governments, protested that the book was intrinsically racist and should be banned.

So in general it appears that while most of his early work was very academic in nature it was on the whole very well received by his target audience, the academics. All the facts he uncovered were not only very well researched but were also unquestionably accurate and this is something in itself.

The titles, as I stated earlier, were suggested by his publishing house with a clear plan to try and increase circulation, so Jackson probably had his own alternative titles that better reflected their high academic nature, especially in the case of his early work. He appears to have bowed to pressure, however, in regards to his later work as it seems to have been targeted more towards the general public rather than the academia, thus causing animosity within academic circles.

Certain academics have come out and actually accused him of fabricating salacious details within an otherwise factual account. Maybe this is because they are actually frightened by what he was writing and that he was going to reveal some great secret, or maybe I am jumping at shadows.

Whatever the truth, we can only speculate as to why Jackson such made a radical switch in his writings. Maybe it was pressure from his publisher, but who knows?

Once we had analysed and sorted the facts we decided to take a look at the security camera footage from St Pancreas and the train itself. Most of the people however did not draw more the cursory glance, being either tourists or business travellers, yet two figures drew our attention. They were both tall Nilotic men dressed in dark suits who appeared to be going to great lengths to avoid the cameras. One of them, we note, was carrying a laptop computer without its case. As we follow the men, we are able to observe them hail a cab from the rank outside the station and fortunately the camera is able to pick up the number on the yellow hackney plate. When we ask, we discover the cab is driven by a Mr Alfred Rodgers so we of course request that he be brought in so as we can question him.

Mr Rodgers is quickly contacted and we are able to question him. Alfred reports that he picked up the two gentlemen in question and took them to Lambeth. Unfortunately this is a largely rundown area of London and thus would have very few security cameras. Plus it is well known to have a large Afro-Caribbean community so they would blend in. Alfred did report that the men barely spoke except to tell him were to go but his next fare complained about blood on the seat, presumably belonging to Mr Jackson. We requested if we could see Alfred’s video as most hansom cabs now record passengers and he agreed to show us the feed, yet when we review it, we note that again the two males avoid looking straight at the camera. We succeed in obtaining a partial profile on one of them but unfortunately not enough for a facial recognition program, unfortunately. As to other man, we have nothing.

With this part of the investigation leading to a seeming dead end, we decided to see if any of the other passengers that were in the compartment with the victim could help. Unfortunately the only person who noticed anything was a Mr Reg Dundas who was seated next to the victim. Mr Dundas reported that Mr Jackson spent most of the time during the trip working on his laptop yet he was unable to tell us what he was working on. He reported that he felt that Mr Jackson seemed nervous and also that he visited the toilet four or five times, very unusual for what is ostensibly a two hour trip, and on each occasion Mr Jackson took his laptop with him to the toilet. Yet Mr Dundas reports that he did not see him eat or drink anything during the trip. (So either Mr Jackson has terrible incontinence or maybe he was hiding something in the toilet - have to check with the guys about whether they have searched the toilet.) When we ask Mr Dundas about the two men in the dark suits he reports having seen one of the men standing at the end of the carriage but does not appear to have observed the second man at all (maybe he was in another carriage) but he is unable to assist us any further as he claims that while he saw him he could not describe him other than the fact he was wearing a dark suit.

We discover after questioning Mr Dundas that Mr Jackson’s suitcase was still behind where he was sitting. We also find a satchel that could carry a laptop, however the laptop is not present. This was most likely taken by one of the men as one of them was clearly seen to be carrying a laptop without its case.

In hope of confirming this we ask Mr Dundas if there were any identifying labels or stickers on Mr Jackson’s laptop but unfortunately this was not the case so we are unable to verify that the laptop Mr Jackson was using was the same one carried away by the two men in the dark suits.

Hopefully we can find some leads towards this rather perplexing case in Mr Jackson’s other effects. Searching through his luggage we are able to find ten items that might lead us to why he was killed.

There were three letters: the first was from a Mr Faraz Najir to a Mr Robert Carlisle, which appears to originate from a shop somewhere in Cairo. I cannot quite recall the contents of the letter however. The second was a typed letter from Miriam Atwright, a librarian at the University of Harvard, regarding a book which he was interested in. The letter states that the book in question was unavailable.

The third and final letter was from Mr Jonathon Kensington warning Mr Jackson to be careful. We learn that Mr Kensington is Mr Jackson’s publisher and editor so he may be able to shed some light on Mr Jackson’s current research.

Three books named ‘The Joy of Sects: a Spirited Guide on the World’s Religious Traditions’ by Peter Occhiogrosso; ‘Death Cults of Murder, Mayhem and Mind Control’ by Jack Sergeant and ‘The History of the Warfare of Science and Theology in Christendom’ by Andrew Dixon White. These were most likely research for his next book and to find their relevance we would have to lay hands on Mr Jackson’s laptop.

This last appears to be the book he was researching at the time of his death as we found a bookmark within its pages which advertises a talk on the ‘Cults of Darkness in Polynesia and the South Western Pacific’ at the College of Antiquities on the 7^th January this year, the talk was given by a Professor Anthony Cowles who is on temporary sabbatical from the University of Sydney and is presently lecturing at Cambridge. I did not attend this as I was otherwise occupied on that day but Belinda attended and recalls his lecture well.

Professor Cowles’ talk appeared to concentrate on some sort of Bat cult that supposedly existed back in pre-historic Australia. The premise involved the so called ‘Father of all Bats’ taking over after great winds blew down and overthrew the gods. Belinda’s recollection is that Professor Cowles seems to have based his entire concept on an aboriginal song cycle and four overexposed photographs involving a number of sweaty men which we were led to believe were taken in the thirties. Once again a lead appears to take us into yet another dead end.

The next two items are also quite intriguing. The first is a business card for Mr Edward Gavigan who, it appears, is director of the Penhew Institute in London. Note: the Penhew Institute is named in honour of Aubrey Penhew, who was killed together with his entire team in Africa while on an expedition to find lost artefacts.

The second item is what appears to be a very official looking receipt for something or other written in the Cyrillic alphabet but signed by Aubrey Penhew. As none of us can read this we sent it to GCHQ for a translation. We were in for quite a surprise when we got the translation back, however. We suspected the writing was Russian and this was proven right but what the receipt pertained to was the purchase of a radioactive isotope from the Ukraine but it is dated several years after Sir Aubrey is thought to have died.

We also find a photograph of a large yacht moored in harbour with a very distinctive skyline and a book of matches from The Stumbling Tiger Bar in Shanghai, wrapped very carefully in a napkin as if they important to him in some way.

The final items, however, are a paper trail involving travel permits, train and air travel tickets. With this information we are able to piece together where Mr Jackson has been recently. It appears he set out from London by taking a flight to Nairobi, and then by air to Kampala from where he flew to Mombassa.

From Mombassa he flew to Hong Kong where he then appeared to suddenly eschew air travel for his next journey was by boat to Shanghai (where he obviously picked up the matches).

At Shanghai he then began to move overland using rail travel, travelling right the way through Russia and the Ukraine and finally arriving at Odessa. From Odessa he then travelled by boat to Cairo and from there to Athens. (I don’t understand why he went from Odessa to Cairo and then to Athens as that seems to me to be going the long way round. Surely the more logical path would be Odessa to Athens and then Cairo but obviously he had a plan in mind and was following something, but I digress.) He then boarded a train and travelled through Europe to Paris where he boarded the Euro Star to London and his date with destiny.

Well we still have a few leads to follow. Alex suggested using the binoculars to ascertain what occurred but we didn’t feel that they would help for if we used them at St Pancreas all we would probably see was an empty platform and if we used them on the train we would definitely arouse a number of questions as there would be nowhere for us to stand in the carriage where we could not be observed by the other passengers.

We did try Geoffrey Baxter’s mask, however, and it was noticeable that there appeared to be a dearth of spirits within the carriage, most likely this was due to newness of the rolling stock, however. We had hoped to talk to Mr Jackson but he was not there.

Our other option was the mortuary; yet not only was the spirit not present but the silver cord was also absent. Maybe this was due to the rituals that were inflicted upon the body. There may be certain African tribes that have rituals that can sever the spirit from the body, but Adam was not exactly sure if that had occurred here. Once again, if we want to get confirmation that this is possible then we probably require St John’s extensive occult knowledge.